Basically ScreamScape has been posting up rumors of Colossus getting the Iron Horse refurbishment that TG and IR have gotten.

2014-2015 - Colossus Refurbishment - (1/10/13) Screamscape sources tell us that management at Six Flags Magic Mountain may have received early confirmation that Colossus will be tapped to be the next Six Flags coaster to get the Iron Horse treatment following the transformation of Rattler to Iron Rattler at Fiesta Texas this year. No word yet on just how much will be changed, but the iconic support structure is expected to remain essentially the same. If true, look for Colossus to go away forever before the end of the year, though it seems like the park may try to promote the final days of Colossus rather than just quietly shut it down, so you may get some early warning.

And the latest update:

2015/2016 - Rumor - Iron Colossus - (4/15/13) According to the latest rumors the Iron Horse treatment for Colossus has been slotted to reopen for 2015, though there is a slight chance it could be pushed back to 2016 if the stars align on another project first. Unlike the quick transformation of Rattler at Fiesta Texas, this is expected to be more of a major overhaul, more along the lines of the lengthy Texas Giant job. This will require the once mighty Colossus to be down for a period of 12-16 months. So for Colossus to be reborn in Spring 2015 it will end up having to close down to begin the project in Late 2013. Stay tuned as we try to keep up to date on what could be the most important new coaster to ever open at ‘The Mountain’ that could create an all time new world record for the park that may never be broken.

Thoughts/opinions?

Here is mine:

1. Remove the f***ing MCBR!!! That is such a horrible section of the ride, and the last 2 times I rode it, my legs were throbbing from me experiencing intense ejector upon exit of the MCBR. I want to see this:

Go back to this:

2. Top the track with full steel rails. I will not mind this, so long as the rails are painted white. It would make what is already a really smooth ride even smoother, and more comfortable for a guy like me with horrid back issues.

3. Re-design the inside of the trains with more comfortable and ergonomic seating, as well as more ergonomic restraints- none of this stiff foam padded tube restraint bull s***. Keep the same general external appearance for that nostalgia.

4. Faster through the 2nd half, due to lack of trims.

5. Keep the original support structure appearance.

This would be my ideal Colossus renovation. I don't even care if they re-model the station, though that would be real nice. It's pretty much as plain and dull as it can get, a few railings, and a flat roof.

It would be great if they left one track as a classic, more family friendly ride and simply removed the MCBR and gave it better trains (3 bench PTCs with buzz bars would be perfect), and gave a Iron Horse rework with some overbanks, lots of airtime and a taller (160 foot?) lift hill. As for the station I would love for the entire station to be done up in a similar architecture style to the very front as it is now (lots of arches and a simple cream and turquoise color scheme).

What I think will happen is both sides will get a full work over to make them marketable and bigger with a possible sprucing up of that entire area around Scream and Colossus.

I heard they are planning on putting a high-five. I really don't want them to do anything to this coaster (Y'know, beyond trims) because the layout is awesome and really, really smooth for a 1970's woodie.

If the Rocky Mountain rumor is true - I could see them turning it into a möbius coaster so you ride both tracks in one circuit. It would become the longest coaster in the world if they did something like that.

I hope they maintain the basic layout and pacing, but I would not mind if drops got higher, steeper, higher speeds and more extreme airtime.

I hope to keep the turns relatively the same though. Allow me to share my most fond story riding Colossus :

My friends and I have a fun and silly ritual when riding Colossus. We row with imaginary oars during the turns to make the ride go faster. With each canoe rowing motion, we yell out "Stroke!"

Every year since 1998 they install the old Psyclone trains facing backwards for Fright Fest.

One year during Fright Fest my friend and I were in the back row of the forward train. The operators held dispatch to make for a fairly even race. First turn comes along and we start rowing away yelling "Stroke! Stroke! Stroke!" The next 3 rows of the train looked back at us...then joined in the rowing and yelling! Stroke! Stroke! Stroke! Our forward train was gaining on the backwards train. The image I will never forget is the looks on the faces of the riders in the backwards train as a bunch of idiots in the back of the forward train rowing, yelling out "STROKE!", and actually catching up in the race!

^I'm not sure why you're so opposed to the rehab, it would basically be turning a mid-range woodie into one of the best coasters in the world, I personally view that as one of the best things that will realistically happen to the park in the foreseeable future.

SFMM doesn't need a good woodie, they have Apocalypse, what they need is something truly world class, most major parks have a coaster rises above the rest (NTAG @SFOT, Skyrush @Hershey, I305 @KD, the list goes on), SFMM doesn't have that besides X2, which is sort of hit and miss. This could easily be that world class ride, what is really sad is that SFMM has the most coasters of any park in the world and yet doesn't have a single coaster in the top 20 on the Mitch Hawker polls while NTAG turned a consistently mid range woodie (like Colossus) into the #3 steel coaster on the polls. If it was limited to the current layout with only changes to the drop angle and hill profiles you would struggle to make it great without converting it to old school trains with buzz bars and potentially increasing the angle of some hills by 10-20 degrees. This would make it almost more cost efficient to turn it into an all new Iron Horse coaster that could be marketed as a new "extreme" experience while the other couldn't.

Posted By: XpressI'm not going to go ride world class rides whenever I go, I go to have FUN on FUN rides.

This is probably the most legit thing on the planet, and It is also something most coaster enthusiasts don't understand. If us enthusiasts didn't have such high expectations for rides then there wouldn't be a coaster that was hated, except maybe S.o.B. and Gourdurix. Those are rides where there is too much pain to enjoy (from what I know. I haven't ridden either). I personally have very low expectations for rides & parks. I had a amazing time at Mt. Olympus, my favorite coaster is Iron Wolf and I'm an Arrow fan. That has to be saying something...

In my books, I think Colossus already is a world-class woodie. It's smooth, looks good, and has a great layout. Seeing as how RMC is the 'thing' and parks are lining out the back door to buy them (probably) they're going to be pretty commonplace in amusement parks, as much as a good B&M. So it's pretty refreshing to go to one of the biggest parks in the world and see a nice classic out-and-back woodie (although I love a good GCI). Parks don't need these new fangled steel tracks (which by the way un-classifies it as a woodie) on their good ol' wooden coasters. I have nothing against them popping RMCs on bad tracks, ie. Texas Giant or Rattler, but not on good tracks, like Colossus. It's smooth! It doesn't need steel track to make it smoother, because it already is smooth.

In my opinion, if you're going to give the RMC treatment to Colossus; you have to go all out. I don't want to see the same exact layout with different rails that are brightly colored. I want to see the greatest dueling coaster you can come up with. Keeping the same layout just seems half-assed to me. So, if you keep the same layout, don't get the RMC treatment because, frankly, colossus doesn't need it; it is already smooth enough.

...plus... ok, am I the only one who is super underwhelmed by what they did to Rattler? Is it better than what was there? Oh my god, yes. The first drop is going to be legendary, the double-up, diving overbank, and barrel roll up onto the hilltop looks absolutely epic.

But.

That crap on top of the ridge? Incredibly low-speed & uninspired if you ask me. It looks like they were designing it, got to the part after the barrel roll and went "well crap, we're out of speed, now what?" and threw in some bizarre track wobbles and an air hill or too, all of which are too tight for the train length.

It picks up a bit from there - the dive off the quarry ridge looks epic, but the tunnel turn + brakerun is pretty weak - certainly not going out with enough of a bang to make up for the top-of-the-quarry part that precedes it.

I don't know if they were handicapped by the park, but it seems to me that another 20' of lift height and slight reprofilings of the first couple elements could have left them with enough room to make properly sized elements (with, you know, speed) on top of the ridge, and ended in a way that isn't just an air-free right turn and a brakerun. Like... a twisting air hill out of the tunnel (or another zero-G roll), leftward 270 degree helix, double up into the brakes. Bam. Rattler fixed.

Whatever. It'll still be a great ride, but it just bothers me a little that, in my opinion, it falls well short of what it could have been with what seems like fairly minor additional changes.

If they're going to do anything to Colossus, I'd like to see them topper track the whole thing and reprofile a few hills at most. Maybe do the trendy thing and replace a few hill crests with zero-G rolls. I worry that if they go full iron horse track + poly wheels, they'll kill it. The dramatic loss of speed over the course of the ride will necessitate serious modifications to the track length & layout, and I just don't see that working all that well. Even New Texas Giant drags a bit in the "magic carpet" section, and that's after they chopped out an entire 360 degrees worth of helix in the preceding section of the ride. Colossus doesn't really have a throwaway section that I can see...

^That was always my thought on Iron Rattler as well lol. Looks pathetic up top. I wish they did a lot of Jetline-style vertical spirals that would drop off the cliff repeatedly (like Superman Krypton Coaster). I can't stand the wobbling either - it's so awkward and out of place.

"my favorite coaster is Iron Wolf and I'm an Arrow fan. That has to be saying something..." -Ironwolfman

I like that, Always good to see a fan of classic goodness. classics are sometimes better than the state of the art ones.

While I've never personally have gone to sfmm, I'd love to go there and ride those amazing looking rides. I think the colossus looks amazing and fun. But seeing comments here and elsewhere on how uncomfortable it tends to be, makes me wonder if this is the best way to go. I'd like to see them bring back that double down and keep the same classic layout with the iron horse track. If they for whatever reason make the coaster have inversions, I think it'd just kill it for me. Not to knock on wooden inverting coasters, but some of them aren't meant to go upside-down. this is one of those to me.

Recent rehabs have done some amazing things to smooth out the track. Colossus is running smoother than it has in years! Even the double up, usually home to tons of bouncing, is far better than it has ever been that I can remember. Makes my rowing efforts more fruitful.

I'm sorry but what this should read is "has great airtime for something at SFMM" because when I rode it a few weeks ago it was basically two moments of good, if a little sharp ejector on the first drop and drop into the MCBR in the back and a good ones in the front on the first turn and rise into the MCBR with a little on the double up. If that's great airtime to you, fine, but to me 2 or 3 good airtime moments on a ride that lasts 2.5 minutes isn't really enough. Great airtime is Xcelerator's top hat or Skyrush or El Toro, not a little pop here and there.

Posted By: ride_opMy friends and I have a fun and silly ritual when riding Colossus. We row with imaginary oars during the turns to make the ride go faster. With each canoe rowing motion, we yell out "Stroke!"

...Are you me? Because my friends and I do the EXACT same thing when we ride Colossus!

...Are you me? Because my friends and I do the EXACT same thing when we ride Colossus!

Sweet! Nice to find more rowers out there!

Back on Colossus, the re-built track has helped the ride run much faster. Less energy is wasted bouncing around so the ride is starting to build up some better and better airtime in the back...up to the block brake. Last time I rode the trims on the uphill entry track to the block brake were on! Speed was harshly dragged down to kill off all the air on the final bunny hops. No amount of rowing would help that final turn after that harsh of a braking.

It is unfortunate that the park places a higher priority on cutting maintenance costs than on the ride experience.

I was working at SFMM the first year in modern times when they installed the Psyclone trains backward. One afternoon when the park was closing down, a maintenance worker called my ride (Riddler's Revenge) and offered to let the crew come test ride Colossus backwards. Of course we ran over as soon as Riddler was shut down. My first ride backwards was run in high speed mode, meaning the lift hill did not slow down at the top and the block brake trims were off. Heavenly!

I might be imagining it but basically all the hills from the first drop through the MCBR look like they've seen some serious retracking love. Here's a hand-shot POV from earlier this year... do I remember reading they'd used I-beam or some other kind of steel track to reprofile it (non-RMC I think)? Those hills look incredibly smooth.

The majority of our members are against it or at least not wanting the basic characteristics of the coaster to change (keep it dueling, no inversions or beyond-vertical banked turns, etc.).﻿ We wouldn't mind seeing it getting RMC's topper track treatment, but the USA has a rich history of wooden coasters & needs to keep its wooden coasters classic.

I don't know, Colossus seems to be a decent ride already and it's in a park which doesn't need for it an extreme makeover. I mean, there are other thrill rides, not like Colossus is the only major ride.. That's good that Colossus is an old-school family woody.

Colossus has large portions of track where the bottom layers have been replaced by a steel I beam. The top layers that overhang for the upstops are still wood. In most areas of the track, a large metal plate covers the top of the wood, inside for guide wheels, and below for upstops. Turns and the final bunny hops are the last areas built like a traditional wood coaster. I presume most of this is an attempt to reduce maintenance costs.

^Aha I love that! But when I rode it yesterday, it was going really fast! The trims on the MCBR lead-in were not on, and they didn't brake us that much on the MCBR itself, so we really flew by the last turnaround and thos airtime hills! The ride just also seemed faster in general.

Well, its over, we are going to have to wait until the 28th for the official announcement. Lets see what their going to do.In the mean time I think we should come up with names. I don't think they would do Colossus 2 because they already have X2, so I think following Six Flags theme maybe "Iron Colossus"? That sounds cool right?